Switching systems are used to provide telecommunications services between two or more user interfaces. User interfaces may include telephone handsets, facsimile machines, computers, and other equipment, and may be connected to the switching system by fixed land-based conductors or wireless services. Telecommunications services are provided by establishing a telecommunications channel between two user interfaces, such that encoded analog or digital data may be transmitted between the user interfaces until a state of completion is reached.
Switching system reliability is an important characteristic of switching systems. Loss of the switching system can result in loss of revenues, customer dissatisfaction, and possibly injury or death if the switching system failure prevents emergency services from being summoned or dispatched in a timely manner. To improve switching system reliability, it is common to use redundant components, such that a single component failure will not result in system unavailability.
Nevertheless, known methods for processing signaling data with redundant components may result in the inefficient use of equipment. In a system that utilizes signaling data interfaces, it may be necessary to have two dedicated signaling interfaces for each external data transmission link that is coupled to the system in order to provide an acceptable level of reliability. If the number of signaling interfaces is decreased by connecting two or more external data transmission links to a single signaling interface, then it may be necessary to change the physical connections to most or all of the signaling interfaces whenever a minor change in system architecture occurs, such as when a data transmission link is added, deleted, or modified.